The newly reorganizaed Anti-Spam Research Group has set up some new subgroups to see if we can get some work done. Our slant is sort of applied research; it's stuff that's not ready for the standards track yet, but isn't blue sky. Several of the groups have a lot of operational relevance, notably abuse reporting standards, BCP, filtering standards (eg, ways to pass around updated filtering info in real time), and the two verify groups. Each of these has a mailing list you can read at gmane.org. If interested in participating, drop me a note with a sentence or two describing your interest and I'll pass it along to the appropriate subgroup head. The list of the subgroups is as follows (http://asrg.sp.am/about/subgroups.shtml): ------------------------------------------------------------------------ o Abuse Reporting Standards - researches standard formats and protocols for reporting email and network abuse Homepage: http://asrg.sp.am/subgroups/abuse_reports.shtml) o Analysis & Characterization (A&C) - applies empirical and quantitative methods to problems and issues surrounding spam Homepage: http://asrg.sp.am/subgroups/analysis.shtml o Best Current Practices (BCP) - researches and documents best practices for spam management Homepage: http://asrg.sp.am/subgroups/bcp.shtml o Filtering Standards (FILTERING) - researches filtering standards for dynamic updating and interaction with MTAs Homepage: http://asrg.sp.am/subgroups/filtering.shtml o Inventory of Problems - research problems with the current email architechture that facilitate spam http://asrg.sp.am/subgroups/problems.shtml o Message Verification (MSG-VERIFY) - researches solutions dealing with verification and authetication in the email messages and headers http://asrg.sp.am/subgroups/msg_verify.shtml o SMTP Session Verification (SMTP-VERIFY) - researches solutions dealing with authetication and verification of the SMTP session (will encompass the old LMAP and CRI subgroups) http://asrg.sp.am/subgroups/smtp_verify.shtml Regards, John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY http://www.taugh.com